Can You Really Make Money on Hubpages?

I find the claim to be completely reasonable, but you must hold a realistic expectation; the site is not out there to create instant millionaires out of writers, but new recruits can expect regular and decent income with their writing skills.

How Does HubPages Work?

In short, this is the place where they publish articles from talented writers.

Articles, in this context, do have a broad definition here.

They accept written work as short as a standard article, and also extended descriptive work, such as a one-page website.

Ultimately, the choice falls on the users.

On Hubpages, an article is referred to as a “Hub“, and this hub could be just about anything. Writers could create a hub to talk about the 10 most inspiring comic heroes in the Marvels publications, grant introduction of oneself, or even some wacky ideas to preserve the earth.

While it is true that you’ll need to be somewhat comfortable with words, but the job does not necessarily call on impeccable writing skills. People whose writing skills, let us just say that fall into that borderline category, have achieved fame here.

A characteristic that is definitely helpful is your inclination to say something about most of the things around us. It is a good platform to reach out to the mass, and you may just get lucky and garner a significant following from this site, which would lay the foundation for successful blogging.

How Do You Get Paid with Hubpages?

A number of options actually exist (placing Amazon and eBay affiliate links and banners, Adsense, etc), but the one I find most helpful is Google Adsense.

You will still need a hub to be published on the site. After which, you go on with your Adsense ID installation, now you are ready to share revenue with Hubpages for your work published there.

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If you are meticulous with your keywords selection (we will get to that later), you are almost assured of significant traffic directed from the various search engines, and the great thing is that this could happen as soon as your article got published. If somebody clicks on the ads that accompany your article, you are entitled to that share of revenue (my guess is 60% now).

Quick Start Guide

If you figure this could be something that may work for you, do the followings and you are ready to make some money.

Apply for an Adsense account (if you don’t have one). Be prepared for Google to take a few days to approve it.

Attach your Adsense ID to Hubpages. As you get on to the accounting settings on Hubpages, you click the “Affiliate Settings” link. Follow the instructions on how to install your Adsense ID.

It is done. When readers click on the ads, you get a share of revenue. You are warned here: never attempt to click these ads yourself or get friends/family to click on them for your sake. If you get caught by Google, this will result in you being banned from the program.

Tips

1. Do a Thorough Keyword Search

Very likely, this is the most significant factor. You need to structure your title in a way that gels well with important keywords.

If you are new to this, I will suggest you make use of Google’s Keyword Planner (a keyword research tool). You can key in a bunch of keywords that seemed close matches to what your article is all about, and you just sift through on which are the most relevant ones.

There is no fixed formula to this, so whichever makes more sense, just experimented with it.

For title choice, I always advocate using longer phrases that make sense. Your title would look ambiguous, if not confusing when you simply call it “Apps”. But if you expand it into “how to use apps on your smartphone”, your readers can actually anticipate what your hub is going to be all about.

However, as mentioned earlier, you will have to carry out a fair bit of experimentations to get it right. There are times your plans and the results worked beautifully, but there will be times when it could really get frustrating.

No one can ever deny you the luck of getting some visitors to your hub even though you may not be into research. But the bottom line is the better you are with keyword research, the better chance you land more significant traffic.

2. Create Good Content

Suffice to say, more content is always better than less content. Try to make an effort to create at least 400 words hubs. If you can help it, go for the 600 — 1000 bracket.

And if you can afford the time and effort, furnish the blog with bells and whistles. You can conduct a public poll among your audience, incorporate news widget, etc… However, know that the last option is more complimentary rather than necessity, but it is a proven approach nevertheless.

3. Build Backlinks

Another useful tactic involves getting links over to your hub. The originating links could be from your own blogs or other sources.

I find it a good idea to submit all those links to social bookmarking sites for this purpose. Another tactic that could intensify your success is to link your hubs comprehensively.

4. Keep Learning & Adjusting

As mentioned earlier, there have to be lots of experimentations involved, especially if you are new.

From my personal experience, I have created 56 hubs in total, and so far 11 of these are responsible for 80% of my traffic.

How Much Can You Make on Hubpages?

I can’t guaranty how much you will make, as the amount of money you earn or whether or not you even make any money, depends on many factors such as how many articles you write, how much time and effort you put into promoting and driving traffic to your hubs, etc.

As for my personal experience, in the few years that I have been writing hubs, I have had months where I made close to a $1000, and I have had months where I barely made 100 bucks.

Again, the amount of money you can make writing for Hubpages depends on the number of hubs you have, their quality, and how much traffic they each get.

Resources to Check Out

This guide is by no means a comprehensive one.

I am sure you will have lots of questions along the way, which is why I recommend you check out the following resources. They helped me get a head start when I was beginning, and I am sure they’ll help you too.

Worth It?

Once you have published your hub, you don’t have to do anything (unless you want to do some promotion here and there), and the hub will continue to earn you money for years to come.

Once you have published your hub, you don’t have to do anything (unless you want to do some promotion here and there), and the hub will continue to earn you money for years to come.

Now granted, if you put some time and effort into promoting your hubs and getting more traffic to it, you will make much more money, but even without it, Hubpages articles tend to rank well in Google, thus attracting free search engine traffic without you having to do anything.

Sure, not every hub earns you hundreds of dollars but imagine if you have only 10 hubs and each earn you on average of $1 a day. That’s $10 a day x 30 = $300. That’s an extra $300 month for a few hours of work (writing and publishing the articles, and maybe a little initial promotion).

Now, imagine if you had 20, 30, 100,… hubs!

It’s as passive as it can get.

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Discussion

Very good article. I think I will try Hub Pages as I really need the extra income. I have been laid off from my job due to cut backs. I do not like the idea of using adsense. I have had an account for years. I have been at 5.36 for over 4 years now. It never changes. I do not know what I am doing wrong.
Thanks for the great article.

I hate to admit it but I have not had one article accepted. I have been submitting articles to sites for years and done well but Hub Pages has not accepted an article yet. I have tried contacting them but no answer. I have been with Hub Pages for 6 years so I think it might be time to give up.

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